If These Walls Could Talk Someone says the words with a knowing smile and heads nod as if they understand. Trust me. They don’t. I hear the walls talk. Sights. Sounds. Smells. Stories held tight in layers of plaster and paint. The walls call to me, and I must listen. Detective Emily Lindell of the St. Louis PD pays me a few bucks to hear the truth the walls hold. She owns me those nights, so I tell her the violent memories. I lie about how I do it, and she keeps dark secrets of her own. We made our relationship of blood splatters, murder, lies, and secrets, but the secrets help me sleep at night, and that’s better than another glass of whiskey and blues music until dawn while I wait for her to need me again. I know I’ll trade some of my secrets for more time with her. What’s really in the walls, restless spirits, the dangers and wonders I’ve seen. The pieces of my world that I swore to hold but that I’ll willing offer her. Because time with Emily is better than whiskey and the blues.